


Who's in the Closet

by Ilene_May



Category: Disney - All Media Types, Lilo & Stitch (2002), Monsters Inc (2001)
Genre: AU, Boo returns to the monster world, College AU, Crossover, F/M, Lilo and Boo go to the monster world
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-03
Updated: 2016-10-01
Packaged: 2018-07-29 03:56:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7669192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ilene_May/pseuds/Ilene_May
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Randall Boggs has escaped from jail, and is determined to get his revenge. He finds his way to the closet of Mary 'Boo' Gibbs, who's just started college and is becoming fast friends with her roommate, Lilo Pelekai. When Lilo's dog (at least, that's what Lilo said it is) Stitch disappears into the closet, the two girls have to venture into the hat-forgotten dreamland of Boo's child to get him back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I got this idea from Tumblr user onemuseleft. If this seems similar to something from anyone else, it wasn't intentional. I'm doing my best to be accurate, but I don't know everything about these movies, so if some of the facts are wrong, that's probably because I made them up because I don't know what it's supposed to be. If you know what it should be, please leave a comment so I can fix it.

“-Randall Boggs, one of the monsters behind the Monsters Inc. scandal, has escaped the Montsropolis prison. If you happen to see him, do not engage, and call 333. Boggs is considered highly dangerous, and is not to be approached under any circumstances. The president will be issuing a statement-“

“Mike!” Sully called out over the television. “Did you hear this?”

“Hear what?” Mike responded, rounding the corner with a plate full of pancakes.

“Randall’s out.”

“You’re kidding,” Mike said, full of slightly angry disbelief. “It took forever to track him down in the first place!”

“I know,” Sully sighed, turning off the TV. He vividly remembered the mess they’d caused in throwing their former coworker into the human world. As soon as the scandal had gone public, the government had decided that finding Randall was a top priority. It had taken the better part of a year for the CDA to find the ex scarer, and had cause thousands of doors to be unavailable – some permanently. Sully had frequently complained about the doors, but no one else in the entire monster world had that sort of technology. “He’d better not get into the human world again. We can’t afford to have all those doors taken offline again.”

“I don’t think he can,” Mike said, sitting down with his pancakes. “After all, there’s no way he can get into the building.”

“I hope not,” Sully sighed, sitting down with his friend. “But what happens if he does? Loosing those doors could mean a serious costumer loss.”

“He won’t,” Mike insisted, looking up from his breakfast. “Sully, if he got out, it’s either to disappear forever or to get revenge. If he wants to disappear, breaking into Monsters Inc. just get him caught again. If he’s after revenge, he’ll be coming after the two of us, which also means he’ll be staying on the monster side of the doors. You’ve got nothing to worry about. Promise.”


	2. In Which Lilo and Boo Meet for the First Time

It was a bright morning at the University of Maryland. It was the first day of the new school year, and the campus was full of students and their families consumed by the task that is moving in.

Two such people, laden down with boxes and bags were rapidly making their way to Ellicot Hall, one moving very fast, the other straining to keep up.

“I just don’t see why you had to choose somewhere so far away,” Nani wheezed, catching the door her sister had just burst through, her long hair swinging in her wake.

“It’ll be fine, Nani,” Lilo rolled her eyes, using her elbow to call the elevator. “ I have your number, I have a phone, and there are campus police. I’ll remember to eat and do my homework. I won’t die.”

“I know, I know,” Nani said, stepping into the lift. “It’s just, you say that now, but give it a month and you won’t be anymore.”

“Nani,” Lilo said firmly, with the air of someone who had given the same speech too many times, “I am a grown up now. I am a responsible adult. I will take care of myself. If I have any huge, massive, the-world-is-ending problems, I will call you. Besides,” she added with a grin as the elevator dinged, “Stitch’ll help.”

“No,” Nani exclaimed, stepping out of the elevator after her younger sister. “You did not bring that thing to college. I told you a thousand times that he is not, under any circumstances, accompanying you to college!”

“Nagasaka!” A blue head popped up from one of the boxes in Lilo’s arms.

“Stitch, no,” the Hawaiian girl cried, trying to shove him back in the box with her chin. It didn’t work very well. “We talked about this!”

“Pets are not allowed in this building!” Nani said, barely containing her outrage.

“Jumbo got a special permit,” Lilo countered, giving up getting Stitch back into the box in favour of trying to dig out her key and open the door to her dorm.

“It’s probably open,” Nani said. “Just because Jumbo got you some fancy permit does not mean it is okay to bring Stitch!”

“Ugh,” Lilo sighed, trying the handle. To her relief it swung open, revealing a young girl with a dark pixie cut lying on one of the beds.

“Hey!” the girl smiled, swinging herself off the bed. “You must be my roommate! I’m Mary.”

“Lilo,” Lilo introduced herself, exchanging glances with Nani. They hadn’t expecting her roommate to be there already. Lilo was kind of glad, since Nani wouldn’t continue chewing her out in front of a stranger. “It’s nice to meet you, Mary.”

“Oh, just call me Boo. Everyone does,” Mary insisted, moving over to help Lilo with her boxes. Lilo tried to prevent her from grabbing the one Stitch was hiding in, but wasn’t fast enough.

“I am Stitch,” Stitch said, crawling out of his box, causing Mary (Boo, Lilo reminded herself) to let out a small shriek of surprise. The blue alien avoided Nani and Lilo’s attempt to grab him and threw himself onto the unsheeted bed.

“Wow, that is some dog,” Boo said, recovering from her shock and moving over to pet him. “I just have a fish! He’s over there on my desk.”

“They let you bring a fish?” Nani asked weakly, setting down her pile of stuff.

“Not really,” Boo admitted sheepishly, “but what they don’t know won’t hurt them!”

“What’s his name?” asked Lilo, who had dropped her stuff and was looking at the (very large) goldfish.

“Mike Wazowski,” Boo replied, still petting Stitch who had begun purring slightly.

“Cool,” Lilo grinned, moving away from the fish and over to her side of the dorm room.

“Really?” Boo asked, looking away from Stitch and at her roommate, a look of slight awe crossing her perky face. “You don’t think its weird?”

“This is the girl that named a dog Stitch,” Nani said tiredly. “Come on, Lilo. We need to get your sheets on.”

 

After Lilo’s stuff was all set up (which had involved five frustrated screams, three loud crashing sounds, and one fight with bed sheets), Lilo said goodbye to her sister (where many tears were shed (none of them Lilo’s)) and ventured off with her roomie and Stitch to find a decent coffee place within a reasonable distance of their dorm building.

“So what’s your major?” Boo asked, crushing stray leaves under her pink combat boots.

“Psychology,” Lilo replied. “Nani wanted me to stay on Hawaii and learn to be a hula instructor. She says hula ‘calms my crazy’”.

“You’re from Hawaii?” Boo asked, her eyes lighting up. “That’s so cool!”

“Yeah,” Lilo agreed.

“Why’d you want to go to an out of state if you’re from the coolest place in the country?” Boo asked.

“I didn’t really have friends there,” Lilo answered, her face darkening as she recalled Mertle’s incessant bullying, and how unhappy she’d been before she met Stitch. “I  
wanted a fresh start.”

“Huh,” Boo murmured.

“So what’re you majoring in?” Lilo asked, making an effort to keep the conversation afloat. She didn’t want UMD to become a new Kauai, and Boo seemed really nice.

“Hmm? Oh, I’m doing into graphic design. I’ve loved art ever since I was little, and most people can’t make much money being an artist,” Boo shared cheerfully. 

“That sounds really cool,” Lilo smiled. “You’ll have to show me some of your stuff.”

“Sure,” Boo agreed easily, heading over to what looked like a small coffee house. “I do some drawings based on this weird memory I have of this monster world. It was probably a dream, but it’s inspired some crazy stuff. I also do a lot of fanart, and I sometimes do commissions! I also have an Etsy, but my shop’s pretty unknown.”

“What fandoms?” Lilo asked, genuinely curious, as she pulled open the door of the café.

“I’m really into Star Wars, and I also love Marvel,” Boo admitted.

Before Lilo could respond (she would defend Deadpool to her grave), the two girls stopped dead, taking in their surroundings with a sense of faint (but growing steadily stronger) horror.

The coffee shop was small, and would have been considered cute and hipster-y had it not been for the décor. The shop had been painted in a glaringly bright purple,  
accented in chartreuse, and given primary colour yellow chairs. The result was enough to permanently scar one’s retinas.

The roommates looked around the coffee shop, looked at each other, looked back at the shop, turned around, and marched straight out the door.

“Café icky,” Stitch shuddered as the door swung shut behind them.

“You said it,” agreed Lilo, nodding aggressively. “I have an idea. Let’s never go back there.”

“That,” Boo began, linking arms with Lilo, “sounds like a great idea.”

As the two girls walked elsewhere to find their coffee, Lilo smiled at the realization that her roommate was a little bit crazy too, and that this was a girl worth being friends with.

She’d probably end up being bad for Nani’s blood pressure.


	3. In Which Stitch Doesn't Like the Closet

_UMD is gorgeous at the end of fall_ , Lilo thought as she made her way back to her dorm. Her Psych class had been great, of course, but she was more than ready for the weekend. As she made her way through the campus, Lilo thought about the different art pieces Boo could make using the almost-winter colours. Her roomie had shown her a few pieces before, and Lilo loved them, which resulted in her coming up with countless ideas for various subjects.

Humming some crappy pop song she’d heard on the radio, Lilo let herself into Ellicot and, waving to the receptionist, made her way to up the stairs to the third floor. When she reached her dorm, she flung open the door dramatically, proclaiming, “You will not _believe_ the day I’ve had!”

Their dorm had undergone many changes since the day they first met. The walls were adorned with tons of pictures (arranged by Boo). There were pictures of the two of them, of their families, of Boo and her high school friends, of Lilo and Stitch, some aesthetic ones (taken by Boo), and some ones of random people (taken by Lilo). Their closet was overflowing with clothes in every colour, lots of funky socks, and a whole lot of red and turtles. The two desks were decorated with patterned tape, and they’d managed to stack their two mini fridges on top of one another, creating space for a bookcase from Target, which was full of an interesting mix of YA fiction, classic novels, comic books, and biographies. Lilo’s toucan sheets somehow matched Boo’s blue-with-purple-polka dots ones. It was a crazy mash-up of colours and patterns, but somehow worked.

“Bet I can top you,” Boo groaned, her entire body slumping backwards as she turned in her chair to face Lilo. “London says we have to come up with an entirely new concept look for Alice in Wonderland. Do you know how many design concepts there are for Alice?”

“A lot?” Lilo guessed, flopping backwards onto her bed. “Don’t worry about it. You’ll come up with something great.”

“I’d better,” Boo agreed, rubbing her cheek. “God, I am _beyond_ ready for this weekend. Five day Netfix marathon, here I come!”

“I take it you don’t have plans for Thanksgiving?” Lilo grinned at Boo’s proclamation, propping herself up on her elbows.

“Nah. My mom decided that it wasn’t really long enough to merit a plane ticket.”

“Same. Nani’s big on family stuff, though, so I’ll have to Skype her.”

“Mine’s not,” Boo rolled her eyes. “Then again, I have three younger siblings. That’s enough to put anyone off family gatherings.”

Lilo nodded. She’d met Boo’s siblings through Skype, and it made her glad that she only had one, although Lilo wasn’t sure that Nani really counted as a sibling.

Shaking her head to get rid of her thoughts, Lilo pulled herself off her bed and over to her desk, dragging her bag with her. “Weekend later, homework now.”

“Fair enough,” Boo pulled a face. “Back to the endless torment, then.”

“Oh, we’re getting dinner first.”

“Deal.”

 

“Done!” Boo screeched, throwing her hands up in victory.

“Oh, let me see!” Lilo, who had finished her Psych assignment about thirty minutes ago, tossed her book aside and hurried over to view Boo’s concept design for Alice. “What is it?”

“It’s based off this weird dream I had as a kid,” Boo grinned widely. “I figured it was crazy enough to be Wonderland.”

And indeed it was. Creatures of all different colours, clad in fur and scales, stood scattered across the page. A Cheshire Cat with a shaggy coat and purple spots grinned down at a one eyed and green Mad Hatter, dressed in a massive black hat with green horns coming off the brim, and an unhappy and gray March Hare, wearing a jacket in a truly horrible shade of yellow. Alice, a little girl with black pigtails and a pink dress, was playing croquet with what looked like a long horn and a ball of slime. The Queen of Hearts, a reptilian creature covered in black hearts, stood in the center of the page, surrounded by a pack of-

“Are those _doors_?”

“Yup,” Boo glanced nervously at Lilo. “In my dream, everything revolved around these doors, so I thought they’d be good for the Queen’s deck.”

“This is _awesome_ ,” Lilo exclaimed, grinning at her faintly blushing friend. “And this is all based on some dream you had as a kid?”

“Well, what I remember of it.”

“So cool,” breathed Lilo, sitting down in her own desk chair. “Seriously, this is incredible. Your teacher’s going to love it.”

“I hope so,” Boo rolled her eyes. “Do you know how hard it was to think of an original idea? I’d come up with something that sounded good, Google it to make sure it was available, and then find out it’d already been used by some movie person!”

“Looks like you came up with something good anyways,” Lilo smiled.

“Thanks,” Boo gave Lilo a shy smile. “Anyways, it’s pretty late. I think I’m going to shower and then hit the hay.”

“It’s not that late,” Lilo began, glancing over at the clock on Boo’s dresser. “It’s only… never mind.”

Boo giggled, moving around the room to gather her pajamas and shower supplies. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. Stitch has been hiding in the closet and seems kind of worked up, so I’d pull him out of there if I were you.”

“That’s why it’s been so quiet in here,” Lilo hit the side of her head. “That shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Good luck,” Boo said as she walked out of their dorm.

“Alright, Stitch,” Lilo said, opening the closet doors. “You need to come down.”

“Don’t want to.”

Stitch had managed to get up on the topmost shelf of the closet (which was at least a foot higher than Lilo was tall) and was pacing back and forth in an agitated manner. Lilo looked up at him in exasperation. The shelf was too tall for her to drag Stitch down, so the uncooperative alien would have to come down because he wanted to.

“Stitch. You’re going to get blue hairs all over everything, and Boo hates that.” Lilo did too, but Stitch cared more about what Boo liked. “Do you want to make her upset again?”

“No.” Stitch had stopped pacing and was now sitting with his ears drooped down.

“Then come out of the closet.”

“No,” Stitch said firmly, his ears lifting up.

Lilo took a calming breath. “Why not?”

“Closet bad,” Stitch hunched in on himself, looking shiftily around the shelf.

“No, it’s not,” Lilo argued, her temper rising.

The two went on in this vein for several minutes, Lilo’s anger steadily rising.

“The closet is _fine_ , Stitch! It’s _you_ that’s being bad,” Lilo finally yelled. Stitch’s ears went down again. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just, there’s nothing wrong with the closet! The only bad thing is that Boo and I are going to have to spend hours getting your hair out of our clothes! Now can you _please_ come down?”

Stitch, apparently moved by Lilo’s words, crawled down from his shelf, but didn’t stray far from the closet. Instead, he sat down in front of it, facing the doors that Lilo shut.

“Stitch, what are you doing?”

“Watching.”

“Why?”

“Closet bad.”

Lilo let out a loud groan of despair and flopped face first onto her bed. It was to this scene that Boo returned to a few minutes later.

“What happened?” she asked as she shut the door.

“Stitch,” Lilo pointed to the offensive creature. “I can’t get him away from the closet. He just keeps going on about how the closet is bad.”

“Well, he’s not in it anymore, so I’d say you did a great job,” Boo tried soothing Lilo’s temper as she put her towel away and grabbed her comb. “Stitch, what’s going on?”

“Closet bad,” he replied, still staring at the closed doors. Hearing this, Lilo let out a small shriek.

“Well,” Boo began, not really sure how to diffuse the situation. “The closet will be there tomorrow. So how about you two get ready for bed, and we deal with this in the morning?”

“Fine,” Lilo grumbled as she peeled herself off the bed and grabbed her nightgown and large fuzzy socks out from under her pillow. “I don’t even know why he’s doing this. He used to do weird unexplainable stuff all the time, but I thought I trained him out of it.”

“Maybe something happened while we were at class,” Boo suggested, removing a few stray short hairs from her comb. “Like, a bug got in the room and hid in the closet or something.”

“Maybe,” Lilo ran her hairbrush through her hair a few times before putting it down. “I’ll turn out the lights. Stitch, you want to get in bed?”

“No.”

Lilo took another calming breath, turned out the lights, went over to her bed, and got under the covers. “Night, Boo.”

“Night, Lilo.”

The two girls settled into their beds and closed their eyes, but after a few minutes of trying to get to sleep, Boo heard something strange coming from Lilo’s side of the room.

“Lilo?” she whispered, half sitting up.

“Hmm?” came the sleepy reply.

“Did you hear that?”

“No. Go to sleep.”

“Okay.” Boo lied down, only to bolt back up. “There it is again!”

“Boo,” Lilo groaned, sitting up, “there’s nothing-”

A loud creaking sound, followed by a growl from Stitch, cut her off.

“Boo?” Lilo whispered, her voice trembling.

“Yeah?”

“What was that?”

“Probably just the pipes.” Boo didn’t sound very convinced, however, and, as another sound made itself heard, both girls turned their head towards their closet.

As the noised grew louder, Stitch grew more agitated. He was pacing and growling as if he were about to attack something. Or be attacked.

“Lilo?”

“Yeah?”

“I think there’s something in our closet.”

“Please don’t say that.”

The noises were growing louder and more frequent, causing the two teens to grow increasingly more frightened. The sounds got louder and louder until suddenly they stopped all together.

The girls looked at each other, the closet doors, and then back at each other. When the noises didn’t start again, they sighed a sigh of relief that turned into a scream of terror when the doors flew open. Stitch let loose a howl of fury, flying into the closet and tackling something to the ground with a loud thump.

“Stitch!” Lilo cried, lunging towards the closet while trying to untangle her legs from the sheets.

“Lilo, no!” Boo yelled, racing over to where her friend was trying to run into the closet, only to trip over a shoe into Lilo and send them both sprawling through the door onto a hard, smooth floor.

Lilo and Boo slowly sat up, taking in their surroundings. They’d somehow gone from their small college dorm room to long, high-ceilinged room with tables and strange structures that looked sort of like charging stations. Stitch was nowhere to be seen.

The girls looked at each other, and slowly turned to see what was behind them.

“Where _are_ we?” Lilo stared in horror as their closet door, connected to one of the structures, loomed out of the darkness at them.

Boo turned towards Lilo, her face pale, and whispered, “Down the rabbit hole.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I haven't updated in so long. I'm not abandoning it; I couldn't figure out how to format it (I'm new here).


	4. Down the Rabbit Hole

“Down the rabbit hole?” Lilo gasped. “You mean, this is your dream?”

“Yes, no, maybe, I don’t know!” Boo cried, clutching her head.

“Okay, do you recognize anything?” asked Lilo, standing up and trying to make some sense of what was going on.

“Yes,” Boo answered, following Lilo off the floor. “I recognize the door stations.”

“Is that what those are?” Lilo pointed at the things she thought were chargers or something of that nature.

“Yes,” Boo nodded. “That’s how they get through the doors.”

“And who are _they_?” Lilo asked, afraid of the answer.

Before Boo could answer, they heard voices approaching the room.

“Officer, there really isn’t any need for this. I’m telling you, there’s no way that Randall could have been here.”

“Someone’s coming!” Boo froze, clearly terrified. “What do we do, what do we do? Oh god, they’re going to throw us in jail forever, what do we-“  
“Hide!” Lilo hissed, dragging her friends under the closest table. “Now shut up.”

From their position under the table, the girls saw two figures approach the large, open, glass door at the end of the room. One was short and rather plump, and the other was too tall to be human, wearing what appeared to be a fur suit and horns.

“I know you have good security, Mr. Sullivan, but Randall worked here for many years, and we know that he used to sneak in here and use unauthorized doors prior to the human scandal.”

“But he had someone on the inside to get him those doors,” Mr. Sullivan argued, moving towards the table the girls were hiding under. The other man had taken out a flashlight and was using it to look behind and under all the tables and the door stations. Seeing this, Boo began poking Lilo, who swatted her hand away, listening intently.

“Sir, Randall broke out of our highest security prison. He must have had help on the outside. Who’s to say that help didn’t come from here?”

“Fine, but I know Randall. He hates humans. What would he want with a door?”

“He spent about a year in the human world. He might have made friends with some of the banished monsters, maybe has a hiding spot out there.”

“He was _glad_ to be back, even if it was in jail. I talked to him. I know.”

“Look,” the short one began, sounding exasperated. Lilo got the impression this wasn’t the first time they’d had this argument that night. “I’m just trying to do my job, sir. I’m sorry for the inconvenience, but the CDA says we need to check every place Randall has affiliations with.”

The light was moving closer to their hiding spot. Boo began frantically tugging on Lilo’s nightgown. Looking up, Lilo realized how close they were to being discovered. She began to look for a way out, but before she found one, she heard a thud and some very creative cursing. Glancing out, Lilo and Boo saw that the adults had discovered their closet door, and the short one had dropped his flashlight in shock.

“We need to put this place on lockdown,” the short one gasped, grabbing his flashlight and running out of the room, Mr. Sullivan following.

The girls waited a moment, then rolled out from under the table and walked over to examine the door.

“Boo, what’s going on?” Lilo asked.

“I don’t know,” she said thickly. “It seems like that dream. I don’t know. But we have to get out.”

“What about Stitch?” Lilo was beginning to feel a bit desperate. She was in a strange place trying to find her best friend, and the only person around was too scared to be of any real help. “We can’t just leave him here. We have to find him. He’s all alone. I should have listened to him! He told us there was something wrong with the closet!”

“We couldn’t have known,” Boo disagreed. “It was weird and random. How were we supposed to know there was something actually wrong?”

“Because he’s never been wrong!” Lilo yelled. “He has never once been wrong about something important! That’s the only reason I’m alive! I should have _trusted_ him. It shouldn’t have mattered if it was random; I should have known he was right!”

“Fine! Maybe you should have! But we need to get out of here,” Boo started for the closet door.

“We can’t,” Lilo grabbed Boo to stop her from going back through the door. “Stitch is still here!”

“You know that dream I’ve been telling you about?” Boo rounded on Lilo with such ferocity that she took a step back. “It was a _bad_ dream. There may have been good parts, but it was a _bad dream_. I am not going to be trapped here again.”

Lilo opened her mouth, to say what she wasn’t sure, but before she could get anything out, the lights turned on, illuminating the massive space. “That’s not good.”

“No it’s not,” Boo agreed, glancing around quickly, making certain that the room was indeed deserted except for the two of them. As soon as she finished her sentence, a loud alarm similar to a fire alarm went off, accompanied with flashing red lights.

“Run,” Lilo commanded, turning towards the glass door the two men had left through. “Run!”

They bolted for the exit, Lilo slipping and sliding in her fuzzy socks.

“Take them off,” Boo yelled, slowing as Lilo regained her balance.

“I will not!” Lilo retorted, picking up speed again and racing out the door. The girls turned right, then immediately turned around to go left when they saw the shadows of strange looking people moving towards them.

“Faster,” Boo urged, taking the lead and turning them down a side corridor to the right.

As they raced down the corridor, one of the doors lining it opened and a round figure stepped out. The girls couldn’t stop in time, and there was nowhere to turn. They crashed right into him, causing all three of them to fall over in a tangle of limbs.

“Sorry, sorry, we’ll just be off,” Lilo babbled, trying to stand up. “Boo, come _on_!”

But Boo wasn’t moving. She was staring with a horrified expression at the person they’d knocked over, if it could even be called that. As the green creature scrambled back, revealing the single eye in its face, Lilo couldn’t hold back her scream.


	5. Monsters and Mayhem

As soon as the shriek of terror left Lilo’s lips, the creature began screaming too, which almost instantly made Lilo shut up. If this _thing_ didn’t shut up, they were going to be caught.

Thinking along the same lines, Boo tackled it, sticking her knee in its mouth (the mouth was too big for her hand to cover it). Hearing footsteps from the corridor behind them, Lilo frantically motioned for Boo to drag whatever it was into the room it had just left. Boo quickly replaced her knee with her elbow, grabbing it under its skinny arms and attempted to pull it into the room.

“Come on, come on!” Lilo whispered frantically, hopping from one foot to the other in a rare display of nerves. Hearing the voices grow louder, she grabbed the thing’s legs and helped Boo yank the struggling sphere into what appeared to be an office. Lilo helped Boo keep the thing quiet as they waited with bated breath for the voices to pass by.

“I’m telling you I heard something!” a male voice said, sounding as though he was right outside the door. Boo let out a small whimper.

“Well, if there was anyone, they’re gone,” a second voice replied, sounding bone tired.

“What if it was Randall?” the male voice asked, his voice lowering. “Do you think we should check to make sure no one’s hiding in any of the rooms?”  
Both girls went rigid at those words. If the people outside decided to check the rooms, they were done for. There was nowhere they could hide, and they didn’t know the building, so they had nowhere to run. They were trapped.

“Randall wouldn’t hide in some office,” the female voice decided. “He’d be hightailing it out of here.”

“You’re right,” the first voice agreed, sounding highly relived. “Let’s go.”

Boo slumped over in bone-melting relief, but Lilo waited until the sounds of footsteps had left the hall before she joined in. Feeling much better now that they weren’t in imminent danger, the girls turned to the dilemma of what to do with their green captive.

“Alright,” Lilo addressed it, summoning her courage. “We’re going to uncover your mouth, but you scream and I’ll knock your teeth out.” She gave Boo a look, causing her to remove her elbow from the creature’s mouth.

To their relief, it didn’t scream. Instead, it asked, “What are you doing here?”

That was almost worse, considering they had no idea.

“Uh, well,” Boo stuttered, glancing between Lilo and the creature. “You see, I mean, that is –“

“We fell through our closet door,” Lilo interrupted, sensing that Boo was just about useless at the moment. “My, uh, _dog_ is here, and we’re not leaving without him!”

The creature looked between the friends for a few moments, apparently too startled for words. Then, suddenly, “I’ll _kill_ him.”

“Sorry?” Boo squeaked.

“Oh, _nothing_ will happen, he said. Randall would _dare_ come here, he said. What on _earth_ would Randall want with a door, he said. This will never involve _us_ , he said.”

“W-who are you talking about?” Boo asked timidly.

“What are you doing here?” it asked, rounding on them. Boo squeaked again and flinched back.

Lilo, on the other hand was beyond done with this. “Who are you?” she demanded.

“I think the real question is who are _you_ ,” it snarked.

Lilo growled, reaching for one of the heavy books on the desk.

“Okay, okay!” it backed up, hands in the air. “I’m Mike! Mike Wazowski!”

“Wazowski?” Lilo repeated uncertainly. She turned to look at her roommate. “But, that’s your goldfish…”

Boo had lost pretty much all the colour she’d had and was shaking. “No, you c-c-can’t be, it, it wasn’t real, it wasn’t!”

Lilo made a move to go to Boo, to comfort her, but before she could actually go, an announcement came over the loudspeaker.

“ _All personnel are required to go to the conference room. The building is going to be undergoing an extensive search, and if you are not in the conference room, you are liable to be arrested. I repeat, all personnel are required to go to the conference room._ ”

“Shit,” Mike Wazowski cursed under his breath. “Alright, you kids have to come with me.”

“Like hell!” Lilo cried, moving into a defensive stance.

“Look, either come with me or get arrested. I can get you out of the building and you can hide at my place for a while,” the green creature said, looking thoroughly disgruntled. “And then, once Sully gets home, we will _kill_ him.”

Boo was shaking like a leave, highly unwilling to go anywhere with Wazowski. Lilo, on the other hand, was contemplative. She knew they couldn’t stay in the building. Despite the fact that Lilo had next to no idea as to what was going on, she could say with complete certainty that no one here would take kindly to the appearance of two humans.

“You can get us out of here without being seen?” she asked, only a little doubtful of her new acquaintance’s skills.

“Won’t be the first time, kid,” he responded with a very resigned tone.

“Right,” Boo said, taking a very deep breath. “Let’s go.”

 

 

Twenty of the most stressful minutes of Lilo’s life later, the strange party of three made their way through the door of a largeish apartment near the downtown of wherever they were. As soon as she entered the living space, the events of the past few hours caught up with Lilo.

Stitch was _gone_. Lilo hadn’t been without Stitch since she was six years old, when she’d adopted him from the animal shelter. The idea that he was gone, that he might not be coming back…

Lilo staggered into a large armchair nearby, throat closing up with the beginning of tears. Stitch was the reason she was still alive, in more ways than one. She had broken more times than she could count, and Stitch had always been there to pick up the pieces. How was she supposed to survive without him there to keep her standing?

“Alright, how did you two get here?” Mike asked, bringing Lilo out of her thoughts.

“Through the closet,” she replied tonelessly.

“But you’re teenagers!” Mike said, perplexed. “We scrape the doors once the kid reaches thirteen.”

“Yeah, well,” Boo said, bringing out her ‘cut-the-crap’ voice that never failed to make Lilo behave. “Clearly you forgot to scrap _our_ door.”

“How we got here isn’t the problem,” Lilo inserted. “Stitch is missing.”

“What’s Stitch?” Mike asked tiredly.

“He’s Lilo’s… dog,” Boo answered, sounding only slightly doubtful at her classification of the alien. “She’s not leaving without him.”

At those words, Lilo proceeded to tune the conversation out. Boo was amazing at getting what she wanted. She’d make sure they got Stitch back. It was a pity Boo was so into graphic design; she would make a great lawyer. Really, though, it wasn’t as though Lilo was asking for anything unreasonable. All she wanted was her friend back. All she wanted was the person she trusted more than anyone safe.

Distantly, Lilo heard the door of the apartment open and close. “Mike you will not _believe_ –“

Lilo turned towards the jarring crash and had to bite down hard on her lip to keep from screaming. Standing in front of the door was a massive, furry person well over seven foot, complete with two white horns protruding from his skull.

“What the hell,” the blue monster (for he couldn’t possible be anything else), “is going on here?”

“Kitty?”

 

 

In the heart of the Monsters Inc. headquarters, Stitch groggily shook himself awake, wondering where his Lilo was.


End file.
